Our American history is filled with unknowns...secrets that researchers, who like archeologists, dig and dig, until they have evidence of truth over speculation. Examples? Rosemary Kennedy's lobotomy (Rosemary by Kate Larson), the Mankato Indian massacre in Night Birds by Tom Maltman, systematic culling of an Indian tribe to gain access to valuable land as written about in David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon. There are more. Radium Girls is another revealing study, and now, that author, Kate Moore, is back with another stunning expose.
After 21 years of marriage, Theophilus Packard, a minister, decides his wife has become intellectually uncontrollable, and has her committed to an asylum for the insane. It's as simple as that. Husband declares wife unstable - unstable she is. The reasons for a declaration of insanity run the gamut - she laughs too much, she talks too much, she is surly or disagreeable... and my favorite, her brain is too small to handle all the material she has been reading. Men were seldom institutionalized, and the "savage" minorities were considered beyond help, so neither were they.
The conditions inside the 1860 facility in Jacksonville, Illinois were dangerous, unprofessional, and filled with women much like Elizabeth Packard. They were wholesome, intelligent, and rational. They were committed not because they needed medical treatment, but to keep them in line - conveniently labeled "crazy" so their voices could be ignored.
Elizabeth refused to be kept silent and fought for her own freedom. In doing so she freed millions more.
Chilling bit of history and a fascinating page turner. If you are looking for something beyond the chipper beach reads, this could be it. Prepare to do a lot of head shaking...disbelief on every page.
Thanks for stopping by.
Stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay happy.
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